The Other Side of the Fence
Finding Your Own Happiness In a Place Where Few Will Tread

To be perfectly honest, I really don’t understand what the big deal is. Why does the world seem to be so angry with me sometimes? I guess I just don’t understand what people think I’ve done wrong.

It feels a little odd to admit that sometimes I feel like Shrek, the animated green ogre from the swamp. Once you get past his large green exterior I find the similarities between the lovable ogre and this humble author to be remarkable. We’re both brave when we have to be. We both have a pretty keen sense of humor. We’re both not what we appear to be to those quick to make judgments based on nothing but their own fears and prejudices. We’re generally strong, yet underneath our substantial defensive arsenals we’re both far more vulnerable than we like to admit. We’re really no threat to anyone, we just want to be left alone to live our lives, and all we’re looking for is our own unique flavor of happiness – just like everyone else.

I suppose it makes sense to get it right out into the open at the very beginning that I am not an ogre. I’m not even green. I am, however, a transsexual. I’m one of them - people who are born with a sense of gender identity that does not match the anatomical sex of their body. To us, it’s almost like an undetected birth defect that many of us spend a lifetime trying to understand and explain. We often grow up feeling confused and out-of-place, oddly mis-cast in life with very few opportunities to share the confusion we feel - much less, fix it.

The very notion that someone might want to change their sex is totally (and perhaps understandably) incomprehensible to most people. General consensus seems to be that a person’s gender, or sex, is immutable and as such is not something that we, as everyday ordinary people, get to choose - or even more importantly, to change. As a result, initial reactions to those who would test the gender barrier seem to run the gamut from amusement, to anger, to contempt. There are those who consider such an undertaking a sin; a sign of moral weakness and sickness so loathsome so as to be doomed to an eternity of damnation; an outrageous form of sexual deviance or perversion rooted in some sort of misguided homosexual pathology. Still others consider it a delusional mental illness the can and should be treated and “cured”.

Transsexuals are historically easy targets for anyone looking for someone lower than themselves in the hierarchy of social disdain. As a result, those who are identified as such face the constant threat of public ridicule and humiliation, rejection by family and friends, loss of career and respect, and sometimes even outright violence. Things are getting better, but the brutal fact remains that being openly transsexual today can be a dangerous proposition - statistics for unemployment, attacks, murders, and suicides in the transgendered community is 5 to 20 times higher than the public at large. For far too many of us, it seems to be a damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don’t proposition. Pick your poison.

Many of us seem to accept this as being just the way it is, as though it has always been this way, and as though it’s normal. We seem to buy into the notion that our options are either (a) to hide or (b) to totally compromise ourselves by not hiding as thought this, too, is some binary of out-ness.  We buy into the thinking that we’re somehow defective - that there’s something wrong with us - and as a result, we accept the baggage of shame and guilt that builds and builds to a point where we can’t imagine living another day with it. After looking at it for what it is, I’ve got one word to say: Bullsh*t.

I’m here to tell anyone who will listen that treating people the way we get treated simply because other people are uncomfortable and can't understand is  NOT normal, and we can't accept it as such. It's easy to justify prejudice: because it challenges traditional religious dogma, or because it threatens this fragile thing we know as "male sexuality", or because others live lives so structured and traditional that they can't imagine anything else.  There are any number of excuses that the mainstream will use to explain why they marginalize some other group.  In this case, we've allowed this marginalized treatment to become engrained in our culture, and in ourselves.   

The problem here isn't that we are the way we are - it's the fact that we buy into this defective mentality thing.   This victim mentality mindset needs to change before things can really REALLY get better for us. Somewhere in this process we accept the baggage that others would pile on us: that we’re doing something wrong, that we're selfish, that it’s somehow our fault. We look for someone or something to save us - we hold on day after day, year after year, making it through each day hoping we won't do anything to expose our true selves - enduring life rather than living it.  In reality, each of us is closer to finding what we need than we know.  We need to be looking inside ourselves. Instead, we find ourselves becoming bitter that the world isn’t fair, that we don’t deserve our fate. And you know what? You’re right. It’s not fair. The world can be a cruel, cold place. But you know what else? The one who needs to reclaim our lives is each of us. You’ll be amazed what you can find.

No. We’re not broken. We’re not good, or bad. We’re no threat to anyone. We’re feeling, sensitive, people forced to make decisions that are far more difficult than they need to be.

I can’t and won’t accept the notion that I forfeit my humanity the minute that someone learns about my unique past – that somehow I’m relegated to some lower caste where others would put me. My journey is a tremendous source of pride for me, so those who are either too ignorant or too afraid in their own little lives to respect my right to be me (whether they can understand it or not) have no business in my space. I respect anyone’s right to have an opinion. However, when someone’s opinion somehow affects my life in a negative way, then I’ll act on it. Ten times out of ten.

I refuse to accept that those who search for their unique sense of peace in places where most are afraid to look necessarily deserve dire consequences or punishments. Fear is simply the tool that society uses to maintain control of those who would step out of bounds. Those who do what I have done, and those who would challenge traditional thinking no matter where it is, need to face fear head on. Each of us needs to come to come to some sense of peace with our fear. Or, we need to let it control us. There are no third options here. Until each of us can do that – we’re stuck.

I truly believe that part of the reason that people like me face the backlash that we do is that much of society feels that we’re cheating. They see a world of hard rules that confine them, and they choose to accept and live by those rules. They’ve been raised that way – that society is based on rules and these rules are firm and final. It gives them a sense of stability – of order – without which life would tumble into disarray and chaos.

One of the wonderful things about thinking “differently” is that it provides an opportunity to develop a unique perspective that others rarely consider. For those who truly break free, things are not nearly so structured and confining. Often, hard boundaries aren’t really all that hard to us. In fact, more often than not they’re not really rules at all – they’re more like guidelines. As a result, some of us perceive many of these same rules more like boundaries to be overcome. As Morpheus says in The Matrix, “This world is based on rules. Some of them can be bent. Others can be broken.” The key is to see them for what they really are.

This seeming blatant disregard for the “rules” fosters resentment and outright anger by those who buy into them – like someone budging in line in front of them or someone who stands up and walks around in an airplane when the “Fasten Seatbelt” sign is on. They perceive us as taking advantage of freedoms that others (namely, themselves) don’t have, that aren’t ours to take. In reality, those freedoms are there for everyone – it’s the courage to take them that they lack.

What happens to those who break rules? They get punished. And, that’s how society sees people like me. We’ve broken the rules, now we deserve to be punished. The problem, you see, is that I don’t see these rules as rules, or at least I don’t see the same rules that others do. In fact – from my perspective I’m really following the rules – not breaking them. You tell me that to be treated the way I find natural and comfortable for me is reserved for women. Okay. I’ve done that. I’ve spent thousands of dollars to follow that rule – to make a gender-binary world comfortable around me. Don’t come to me now and tell me that I can’t do that in the first place, that I needed to stay confined to my guilt-ridden, uncomfortable existence.  I found my own unique freedom.

Think about this for a second. If you were on one side of a tall, strong fence and you saw something you really, really needed on the other side you’ve got two choices: either accept the fact that the fence is a boundary and you’ll never get that thing (whatever it is), or find a way to get past the fence. How creative can you be? How much courage can you muster? How badly do you want it? How hard are you willing to work to get to the other side? How much do you trust your instincts? Exactly how sturdy do you perceive that fence to be? What if your life depended on it? Extraordinary problems require extraordinary solutions. These are the qualities that will determine whether you get to the other side. The fence won’t keep you from getting what you need – you’ll do that all by yourself.

Now, what if that thing on the other side of the fence was your opportunity for your own sense of freedom?  What if it held the possibility of finding answers to questions that had plagued you for your entire life?  You can see it through the fence.  There it is!  It's right there.  Could you reach for it?  Or would you just sit there looking at it?

What if you got to the other side of the fence and realized that you didn’t need that thing as much as you originally thought? It really didn't hold the happiness you were looking for.  Well, you can move on with life in the knowledge that you realized this from experience. If you had stayed on the other side of the fence you’d spend a lifetime never really knowing whether you really needed it or not. You’d wonder about it. If you’re not careful, it can eventually eat you up.

This mentality is not limited to trans people. It’s everywhere. These are questions that we each ask ourselves each and every day. These are decisions we make – consciously or unconsciously – as we face barriers that prevent us from doing things in our lives.

I’m not suggesting total disregard for rules. I’m not suggesting disregard for institutions, or conventions, or paradigms that others have adopted and hold dear. What I am suggesting, though, is that social change comes from those who challenge social norms – who see these fences for what they are. This is simply part of free thinking, and we need to appreciate that attribute as a positive thing.

Who would suggest that the world was round when it seemed so obvious to everyone else that it was flat? Theories that have become foundations in math, science, geography – they all start because someone is willing to break free. They’re all conceived by people who refuse to be confined by the fences – who have more room to let their thinking roam. That’s how I see us. And frankly, that’s one of the amazing qualities that make many of us different from everyone else. We need to appreciate it. Not hide it.

Of course, there is often a dear price to pay. There is backlash - and it has been that way since the earliest days of man. Socrates was forced to self-execute himself for his “heresy”. Galileo was punished for his ideas.  People who come ahead of their time, at the tip of things that others can’t understand or feel threatened by, face resistance. At that point you’ve got a couple of choices – either fall back in line with everyone else, or stick out like a sore thumb and deal with the pressure. Sadly, far too many people find themselves giving up their idealism and falling back in line.

I warn you, though. Once you experience this freedom, you really can’t go back. For those who need structure to feel secure, that can be a scary proposition. This genie is way too big to put back in the bottle. She loves her freedom way too much to let herself be confined again.

What makes me different from most other people (besides the fact that I’m transsexual, or course)? It's not that I'm a man or a woman or something in-between.  It's not that I'm better or worse, smarter or dumber, enlightened or confused.  No - those are not the most significant differences.

Truth be told, I’m freer than they are. I don’t live in fear, and I’m not threatened by others who don’t think like I do. I'm excited, not threatened, by ideas that open new frontiers and possibilities.  I don’t see the world in the same binaries that others do - rather than whites and blacks I've come to see the worlds in various shades of gray.  I know myself and, to be honest, I think I know a lot about people in general, too. In short, I live on the other side of the fence.

How did I get here?  I can't say, exactly.  Part of it, though, is the intense experience of going through my transition.  To most, a gender transition is simply what it appears to be: the process of moving from one gender to another.  To me, it was an intense opportunity to examine myself and the world around me.  The end result is that I see obstacles and boundaries as far less daunting than most.  I have proved to myself that the impossible is possible.  The only thing it takes to prove that to ourselves is to know we can.

Ogres don’t fight dragons. Ogres can’t marry princesses or be nice. Ogres are ugly, and they’re supposed to be mean and nasty. Shrek didn’t buy into any of these things. He lived life on his own terms. He had a sense of humor about himself and about life. He found his unique sense of happiness in his own unique place being his own unique self..

Shrek is my hero. If ogres are like onions, then so am I.

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